Increased efficiency has come to be required of all arts with the progress and development of electronics, and the art of silver halide photographic processing is no exception to this trend.
In particular, rapid photographic processing of sheet form sensitive materials, such as photosensitive materials for graphic arts, X-ray sensitive materials, scanner photosensitive materials and CRT image-recording photosensitive materials, is increasingly required.
Moreover, a smaller volume tank suffices for photographic processing of a unit area of photosensitive material per unit time the more rapidly the photographic processing is performed. That is, rapid photographic processing has the advantage that it can contribute to miniaturization of an automatic developing machine, so it is of a great significance.
However, the speeding-up of photographic processing is attended by the serious problem that a sensitizing dye contained in a silver halide photosensitive material cannot be completely eluted during photographic processing, and remains in the photosensitive material as "color contamination".
An optically exposed black-and-white silver halide photosensitive material is generally subjected, in sequence, to development, fixation and washing processings, and has conventionally required a great quantity of water in the washing processing. This requirement is undesirable from the standpoints of conservation of water and energy, and imposes a great restriction on the space required to install an automatic developing apparatus. Accordingly, it has been desired to effect washing processing with a small amount of water, or to process with a stabilizer without undergoing any substantial washing processing.